Catch Up - Chinese Students

So, here's a little catch up. I'm going to go all the way back to July/August because that is when God began working a vision into my and Jeremy's heart.

Our church has hosted about 200 or so Chinese students for the past 6 years for 2 1/2 weeks during the summer. These students are in a school program that exposes them to a western culture experience. Their whole trip is actually around 6 weeks and they travel from the east coast to the west coast. For the 2 1/2 weeks that they are in Texas (because Texas is that awesome) they stay in host family homes. These kids are welcomed into the home and treated like part of the family. They even call the parents Mom and Dad.

Jeremy and I had wanted to do this for the past two years but circumstances just weren't conducive. This year we decided to just suck it up and do it. We were assigned two 13 year old boys. I have to confess to you that I had a stereotype image in my mind of what our boys were going to look like.  I was pretty off.

Here they are on the last day of their stay with us. Bill is on the left and Bruce on the right.

 Just to give you some perspective, here's a picture with me standing with them. I'm about 5'4". These were 13 year old boys! Bruce was actually bigger than Jeremy.

Before they arrived, both Jeremy and I were a bit curious about how they would blend with our family, get along with William, get along with the dog, and honestly, how much work and how far out of our comfort zone hosting these kids would be. To be completely honest, it was a bit of work and it did force us out of our comfort zone from time to time but it was a fantastic experience and one we hope to repeat this summer.

Here's some highlights of our time together:

 Teaching the boys baseball

 Pleasure Pier in Galveston. Turns out the guys didn't find it that pleasurable.

 The beach. This was a first time experience for both Bruce and Bill. This they liked.

 We ate out a lot. Funny story about this pic. The guys LOVED Coke. Loved it. We went out to eat and this particular restaurant did not offer Coke. So we asked them if they would drink Pepsi. Both of them immediately declined... so American already. Turns out they just didn't understand Pepsi is similar to Coke. They drank it in the end... so unAmerican.

 They did a lot of movie watching and video game playing.

 Bowling...also a first for both the guys.

 And ice cream! We were watching the Olympics here.

So I have to share a really funny experience Jeremy had while transporting the guys home from a wedding we attended. It was actually one of my best friend's wedding (and I was a bridesmaid) so I stayed until the bride and groom drove away. Our Chinese students were really not having fun so Jeremy volunteered to take them home. On the way home they said they were hungry. Mexican food was served at the reception and neither were a fan.  Jeremy pulls through a Micky-D's and asks them what they want. Bruce says, "I want a number 6, number 8, number 9 and 10." No kidding, he wanted 4 value meals! Jeremy, being the good father he is limited Bruce to one value meal and a 20 pack of nuggets. These guys were a bottomless pit when it came to eating.

So I teased you in the beginning that hosting these fellas was the beginning of a vision for our family. If you remember, last summer (2011) we had a...struggling for the right word here...debacle, no not right. An issue, an episode, a reproductive challenge? We miscarried and then I had a tumor that required chemo. There. I just said it. So this "episode" started us thinking of what we would do if we couldn't have any more children naturally (I'm still waiting on the OK from the oncologist to start trying again.)
I'm pretty pro-adoption but Jeremy wasn't on board. He had several concerns including but not limited to: cost (the first thing he said but most likely not the primary reason) and a fear of not bonding.

And then these "boys" came into our lives. In 2 1/2 weeks they truly became like part of the family. I cried when they left. And Jeremy was sad too. (though our grocery budget sighed in relief.) At that point we began to seriously talk about adoption/fostering.

So here's where I'm going to ask you for some help. We have an informational meeting on November 7th about potentially becoming foster parents. Would you pray for us and for this meeting? Regardless of whether we ever have any more children naturally, I feel very strongly that God desires our family to  "care for the orphan in their day of distress".

Fourth of July

Whoa! Was my last post really in April? Sorry about that folks. 

So...Fourth of July. Jeremy and I used to love to run together. Then we had a kid. William will be three in October so I thought that this might be a good time to introduce him to the love of running. I crazily thought my 2.75 year old could handle a family fun run. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Sheesh!

Early Wednesday morning we all got up, put on our running shoes and headed down to Lost Creek Park for a fun run. Jeremy actually ran the 5k while William and I hung out on the playground. What a perfect opportunity, I thought, for some cute pre-race pics. Wrong.

So, here are my pre-race pics of William.  Me: "William, say cheese!" William: "Ugh! Ugh!" (He wanted the phone)

Me: "William! Smile for Mommy! Say cheese!" William: "Uggghh! [insert scratch] ugh!"

Me: "William David! Smile for Mommy!" William: "Uugh ugh usgh!"

Dang! No cute pre-race photo. Man. Kids start getting their own mind early.

Daddy finished his race and now on to the family run/walk.

Here we are heading to the starting line. See that guy in the blue shirt. That's Jeremy trying to lure William to the line. 

 So, we started out pretty good. William and I went along like this for about, ummm, 25 feet or so.

William: "Hold!" Me: "What? You want me to hold your water?"

Me: "Oh! you want me to hold you." Crazy mom. We did 1.5 miles like this. I kid you not. This little dude was not into walking at all. I'd put him down and encouraged him to walk and he would lay down. For real. He would drop to the pavement and lay down. So, I picked him up and walked on.

I always wondered how far I could carry William.  And now I know, at least 1.5 miles. I know there is some great spiritual truth in this but to be honest, I'm too tired to think about it right now. :)

Train on the Brain

I know I said I would update with our Easter pictures but the week after Easter my hard drive crashed. Fortunately,  I had backed up my computer but I'm having some issues migrating those files over so I'm just going to skip ahead and post about our Day Out with Thomas the Train.

William has train on the brain. Most mornings the first word out of his mouth is either truck or train. His favorite movie right now is Polar Express. We pretty much watch it every day.  We were planning on taking this trip later in the year but as I was looking into it, I saw that it was only going to be in Texas during April. So, Friday night we packed up and headed to Grapevine. The trip to Grapevine is a subject for a blog post all in itself. William and I left the house around 4 pm in the middle of a thunder storm to pick Jeremy up at work and we finally pulled into our hotel in Grapevine around 11:30 pm. Eeesh.

So pictures...I mean, that's what you're really here to see, right?

The first thing we was was this Thomas bounce house/slide.

William sliding...

William bouncing...

The front.

We did that for several minutes but I really wanted to see the train.

Here it is. I honestly wasn't expecting much. I think this is super cute and well done. It is not cheesy in any way. It definitely exceeded my expectations.

They have a dude that takes your family's picture with the real Thomas the Train. We took the picture but didn't end up buying it. It was $20 for a mediocre picture of Jeremy and I and a terrible picture of William trying to get out of the picture. Here, William is running down the tracks. You can see Jeremy beckoning William back.  The guy in blue was pretty adamant that William needed to get off the tracks immediately. Yeah, OK buddy. He obviously doesn't know how train obsessed my child is.

Next it was time for our ride. This is the line...we were scheduled for 9:45 a.m., the second ride of the day. I'm glad we went early. The crowd just keep getting bigger and bigger. William did fair waiting to board the train. He only had a couple minor meltdowns. The good thing about an event like this is that everyone else is also with toddlers and so there are no ugly glares when your kid acts like, well, the wicked little sinner they are.

William spent the entire ride pretty much like this.

A family shot a nice co-passenger took for us. William wasn't really into the family pic.

They had lots of other great activities for kids. In one tent they had train tables and trains.

Then in a separate tent there was this really extravagant train set, actually there were several trains going around on several tracks (sorry no picture of that) but William was mesmerized. He watch these trains for at least 20 minutes.

 There was a huge sand box....

There were other fun things that we didn't do like temporary tattoos, a very small train ride, and you could wait in line for a picture with Sir Topham Hatt. William is not into lines or Sir Topam Hatt so we skipped that.


And of course the trip would be incomplete without visiting the gift shop.  We picked out a starter train set for William to take home. We set it up for him when we got home Saturday night. Oh. My. Goodness. He LOVES it! This smile is completely genuine.

He loves his train so much, he even slept with it. When he woke up in the morning what did he say? "Oh, train." Like I said, he has train on the brain.

All Dressed Up And No Bunny To See

I seriously have so much to do this morning the absolute last thing I need to be doing is updating this blog but that stuff is just so much less fun.

So, a couple weeks ago I got William all dressed up in his Easter outfit to go see the Easter bunny. I checked the schedule before leaving the house because its quite a trip for us to this particular mall.

I excitedly walk William to the designated area and guess what, no bunny! His chair and all the Easter decor was there but there was no bunny to be found.

Perhaps he's taking a break or an early lunch I thought to myself. So William and I decided to kill a little time by riding the carousel....

My baby is growing into a little boy right before my eyes.

Mid-ride William decided he wanted to ride a horse. I'm pretty sure moving about is against the rules or at least frowned upon while the ride is moving but I didn't want to have to pay to ride again and I thought him sitting on the horse would be a cute photo pop.

He was really more interested in how the thing worked and a bit trepidatious with the horse going up and down and the ride going around and round.

"Whoa, horsey!"

"Hmmm, how does this work?"

No smiles on this ride.

After the carousel we watched some kids run around like hampers in plastic balls inflated in a pool of water. No photos but I'm sure you've seen these things. They actually look like a lot of fun. Maybe we'll do that next time.

We grabbed some fries and a drink, people watched and then went back to check for the bunny. Again, no bunny.  William was quickly tiring of the mall at this point so we packed up and went back home literally fulfilling the saying of being all dressed up and having no where to go...

I have some fun photos of our Easter weekend but those'll have to wait. The dishes in my sink are screaming to be done. Hope you see you again real soon!

P.S. I'm so glad I did get these photos of William in his Easter outfit because he was not cooperative on Easter morning for the obligatory family shots. But more on that later. :)

First Haircut

William's hair had gotten a little out of control. It's hard to tell from this photo but he really had a mullet going on. He has needed a hair cut for quite awhile but I just didn't want to let go of those baby locks. First, he had been bald for so long I cherished every little hair on his head even if it was whonky. Second, I was afraid if we cut his hair he would look bald again and third (and the really real reason) in my mind a haircut would mean that he is growing up....(insert sigh and suppression of a tear).

But I pressed forward anyway and we did this. We went to Crewcuts and Pigtails or maybe its Pigtails and Crewcuts...whatever. I'm sure you know the place.  It was pretty great for William. He got to sit in this car and watch Toy Story. You can see how long his hair was in the back...

I totally bribed William with M&Ms too. Even with all that he did not sit very still. Every time Precious (not her real name) went to snip he would try to pull away. 

I'm going to refrain from commenting on this sweet gal's fascination with Hello Kitty. Seriously, that is permanent ink, are you sure you want Hello Kitty? To each their own. She was really nice and did a pretty good job considering how dodgy William was.

 Wow. My baby just turned into a little boy.  I have to admit, it looks so much better.  What was I so scared of?

The Unhappy Zebra

Once upon a time there was a little zebra named William. William was an unhappy zebra.

You see, this little zebra's diet consisted mainly of sugary snacks and he had had none. His mommy and daddy tried to explain that he would soon have all the sweet, sugary goodness he could imagine but he didn't believe them...





...and he laid down in protest thinking he might actually die.

His mean mommy and daddy, however, could not be so easily persuaded and forced him to go out into the cold, dark night and beg for his snacks. Little did he know the joy set before him.

At first, he did not understand what to do but after some coaching and perseverance he began to understand. 

Before he knew it he was back home with a bucket full of the delectable goodness for which his heart sings. This made William very happy.

Little zebra learned an important lesson - good things come to those who listen and obey Mommy and Daddy.

But there is a greater truth to be learned...

Matthew 7:11 If you then, being evil,  know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him.

The Father desires to lead you in paths that lead to peace and joy beyond anything we can fathom. Are you responding like our little zebra? Would you rather lay down and die than follow? Unlike our story, He won't make you go. You must chose to follow. When you do, you will find that trust in Him brings perfect peace, and obedience brings an abundance of joy.

The End.